Kerala: Periyar river chokes, pollution control board conducting daily checks

Eloor smells like it is dying. Once it was an island of rich farmland on the Periyar River, 17 km (10.5 miles) from the Arabian sea, teeming with fish. Now, a stench like putrid flesh hangs heavy in the air.Here some 300 chemical companies belch out poisonous fumes, almost warning people to stay away. The waters have taken on dark hues.Many of the petrochemical plants here are more than five decades old. They produce pesticides, rare earth elements, rubber processing chemicals, fertilizers, zinc-chrome products and leather treatments.Some are government owned, including Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore, established in 1943, Indian Rare Earths Limited, and Hindustan Insecticides Limited.Residents say the industries take in large amounts of freshwater from the Periyar and discharge concentrated wastewater with almost no treatment.Anwar C. I., who uses initials for his last name in the custom of southern India, is an official of the Periyar anti-pollution committee and a private contractor who lives in the area.He said residents have grown accustomed to the all-pervasive reek that seems to hang over the place like a heavy curtain, enveloping everything and everyone.The groundwater in the area is now fully contaminated, he said. Even the government’s contention that the businesses benefit people is wrong, he said. Residents have risen up against the factories. The protests began in 1970, when the village first witnessed thousands of fish dying. Both die-offs and protests happened again many times after that.The state Pollution Control Board shows little appetite for enforcement of environmental laws and downplayed the industrial pollution in the Periyar River, blaming it on sewage from homes, commercial institutions and markets upstream.Baburajan P K, chief environmental engineer of the board, said that heavy metals and other parameters in the river “are almost compliant with the standards."Eloor resident Adam Kutty, in his 50s, says the Pollution Control Board “itself has now been polluted.”Research also tells a story of a river in distress.As long ago as 1998, scientists at the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies found some 25 species of fish had disappeared from the region. Experts have found contamination in vegetables, chicken, eggs, fruits and tuber crops from the region.Chandramohan Kumar, a professor in Chemical Oceanography at Cochin University of Science and Technology, has researched pollution in the Periyar River for several studies and found pollution from fertilizers and heavy metals.India’s special environmental court, the National Green Tribunal, ordered the government a decade ago to create an action plan to restore water quality in the river to protect the environment and public health. It also ordered the formation of a monitoring committee.More recently the Tribunal was worried enough to initiate its own proceeding on the pollution. It cited studies going back to April 2005 carried out by the environmental non-profit group Thanal.They showed that “hundreds of people living near Kuzhikandam Creek at Eloor were afflicted with various diseases such as cancer, congenital birth defects, bronchitis, asthma, allergic dermatitis, nervous disorders and behavior changes.”Kumar said the remedy for all this pollution is clearly onsite treatment at each facility, and it comes down to money. “If they are ready to invest, the effluent discharge can be resolved.”For years now, Omana, a resident of Eloor and her neighbors haven’t consumed fish from the river. It gives them serious diarrhea and they know that even after cooking, the fish caught from the region bear a strong taste of pesticides.Meanwhile trainees with the Pollution Control Board continue with their daily trips to collect samples from six different points along the river.“But we don’t know what happens to those samples,” Kutty said. “What’s the point of having all the money in the world and no water to drink?” he asked.